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Reprinted from the 
EDUCATIONAL REVIEW 

New York, May. igoy 



HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL 
IN RUSSIA 



BY 

VLADIMIR G. SIMKHOVITCH 




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IV 
THE HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL IN RUSSIA^ 



It was in the summer of 1836 when in the Telescope, one 
of the leading Hterary monthHes, an article appeared entitled 
'^Philosophical letters." The author of this article was Chaada- 
yeff." This article made a greater stir than anything ever 
printed in Russia. It set the whole Russian literary world in 
a state of frenzy ; it enraged the Emperor and higher bureau- 
cracy. Chaadayeff was immediately ordered by the Emperor 
himself to be declared as insane, and a physician was ordered 
to send written reports every week to the Emperor in regard 
to Chaadayeff's mental condition. The editor of the maga- 
zine was sent to Siberia, and the rector of the Moscow Uni- 
versity, who was acting at that time as censor of all Moscow 
publications, was dismissed. 

There was nothing revolutionary in this article, it did not 
excite to any political action. Quite the opposite. Every word 
was solemn, breathing absolute despair. It simply announced 
that Russia never had had a ray of light in the past and that 
it never could have a ray of hope for the future. Very quietly 
he explained that, in fact, Russia has neither a past nor future, 
and that its existence is but a great hiatus in universal history, 

' Since it is improbable that the readers of this article will have any use for 
sources printed in Russian, reference to Russian books will be made only in very 
exceptional cases. 

^Chaadayeff, a scion of one of the very best Russian families, was an officer in 
the Imperial Guards, who even while in the army took a g^reat interest in philoso- 
phy and politics, and was well known for his political radicalism. Besides being 
famous on his own account, his name in Russian literature is closely linked with 
that of the greatest Russian national poet, Pushkin, whose most intimate friend he 
was. It is a pity that even now, over eighty years after Pushkin's death, we do not 
have in Russia a complete edition of his works. All his political poems are not 
allowed to be printed, and precisely in these political poems of Pushkin we find 
constant reference to his friend Chaadayeff. So for instance in one of them Push- 
kin characterizes Chaadayeff as a man who in Rome would have been a Brutus, in 
Athens a Pericles, but in Russia under the yoke of autocracy he can be but a 
cavalry officer, etc, 

486 



The history of the school in Russia 487 

and a fearful object lesson. And all that because Russia took 
its Christianity not from the Eternal City but from decayed 
Byzantium. From the start Russia, therefore, had cut itself 
off from the ever-living source of all European civilization — 
the Roman Church. That is why Russia did not take part in 
the great onward procession of European civilization. For 
while Western nations under the guidance of the Roman 
Church were learning, progressing, and developing to free- 
dom, Russia was left isolated and alone to develop serfdom 
and despotism, with such moments of enlightenment as des- 
pots fancied to allow.^ 

Chaadayeff's fundamental proposition, while in the main 
erroneous, is in so far true, that the Russian civilization was to 
an extent cut off from that of Western Europe and developed 
because of Byzantine influences in a peculiar and rather iso- 
lated way. 

But all conclusions on the basis of post hoc ergo propter hoc 
are to say the least very risky. It is true that the Roman 
Church became the school-teacher of Western Europe, and it 
is Equally true that the Eastern Church did not play the same 
role in Russia. But to draw from this fact the conclusion that 
the lack of schooling in Russia is entirely due to the Byzan- 
tine source of its Christianity is as justifiable as to attribute 
to the lack of universities in China the fact that the Celestials 
have not contributed anything to the development of classical 
philology. 

The Christian Church thruout its history was at least as 
much influenced as it was influencing, and that is why it be- 
came the universal church. Read that most beautiful piece of 
medieval Latin, the prolog to the Lex Salica, in which Christ 
is lauded as the War Lord of the Franks, whom He especially 
elected and to protect whose arms is His supreme care. Could 
the Franks accept Christianity on another basis? Ideas can 
be inherited, borrowed, or imported, but to become a living 
force they have to adjust themselves to existing social con- 

^ There is a French edition of Chaadayeff's writings: CEuvres cJioisies de Pierre 
Tchaadaief, publiees pour la premiere fois par le Prince Gagazin de la Compagnie 
de Jesus, Paris, 1872. 



4^8 Educational Review [May 

ditions. As Goethe says somewhere, " Was du ererbt von 
deinen Vatern hast, Erwirb es um es zu besitzen," and this 
" Erwerbungsprozess " is the process of adjustment. Per- 
haps by the constant intercourse thru war and peaceful trade 
with Byzantium the Russian warriors became enhghtened 
skeptics so far as their own idols were concerned and began to 
have a slight suspicion as to the capacity of their gods. Rus- 
sia then adopted Christianity, but Byzantine Christianity was 
too sublime and its content too deep for the common pagan 
of yesterday. A natural compromise, therefore, took place on 
the basis of ritual. The outward Byzantine form of Chris- 
tianity was acccepted without any reference to its meaning and 
its aims. The best historian of the Russian Church, Professor 
E. E. Golubinski, is justly of the opinion that in the ante- 
Mongol period the Russian people had not assimilated any- 
thing of their new nominal faith. Yes, even so far as form 
was concerned, early Russian Christianity was fused with 
pagan rites. For a great many centuries what Rambaud says 
about Russian colonists in Asia was also true about Er^^opean 
Russia. " Between the Russians and the pagans there," s^}"^- 
Rambaud,^ " is established a oneness of faith or superstition. 
There is no question of complicated dogmas devised by the 
subtle brains of Alexandria or of Byzantium. The untutored 
Siberians do not fall -into controversies over the mystery of 
the Trinity, the twofold nature of the Redeemer, or Transub- 
stantiation. The idea of God is too lofty for these coarse 
minds, but they all agree in placing on the summit of their 
Pantheon Saint Nicholas the Thaumaturgist, and above him, 
beneath him, or equal with him, Christ and the Virgin. Be- 
neath these come saints, Christian, or with a physiognomy 
that may be pagan. Buddhistic, and at times Mohammedan. 
And all this multiform worship is in full harmony with 
the primitive cult of springs and of certain venerable trees, with 
the belief in demons of the forest and river sprites, and with 
the custom of Avearing certain amulets that the orthodox 
priest, the Shamanist sorcerer, or the Hadji returned from 

* Alfred Rambaud, "The expansion of Russia," reprint from The international 
monthly, Burlington, Vt., igoo, p. Sq-go. 



1907] ^'^^^ history of the school in Rtcssia 489 

Mecca, may furnish. What more is necessary in order to be, 
in this Hfe, successful on the farm, or in fishing, or in hunt- 
ing, or in war, and in the next to be certain of salvation?" 
It is, therefore, not altogether ignorance that made the learned 
Swedish theologian, Johannes Botwied, write as late as 1620 
a dissertation which he defended in the Upsala University on 
the subject **Are the Muscovites Christians?" 

But they most certainly were Christians, and if we should 
fail to recognize them as such, they would have had exactly 
the same right to fail to recognize us men of the twentieth 
century as such. 

From the days of the Mongol invasion (1280) the Russian 
Metropolitans and Bishops were sent from Konstantinopol 
and were Greeks. They were all cultured men, but they could 
not understand Russian and the Russians could not have un- 
derstood their Byzantine rhetoric, even if it had been trans- 
lated to them. Soon, therefore, it became evident that not 
only the priests but also the bishops in Russia must be Rus- 
sians. This, of course, meant a lowering of the clerical stand- 
.jira. The clergymen were illiterate, and all that possibly could 
be expected from them was an approximate knowledge of the 
ritual. The Archbishop of Novgorod, Gennadius, writes in 
the sixteenth century that it was impossible for him to find 
clergymen who could read and write, and he was therefore 
obliged to ordain illiterate men. These men learned the dif- 
ferent Church offices by heart, but they could not read them. 
Gennadius urged the establishment of schools for clergymen, 
but evidently with little success. In 1551, at the so-called 
Stoglav Council, the question of the illiteracy of the clergy 
was again discust, and it was again brought out that they 
learned the different Church offices by heart from their fathers 
and their masters, but when asked why they did not learn how 
to read, they answered that they had learned from their mas- 
ters all they could teach, but that there was nobody from 
whom they could learn how to read. The Stoglov Council 
of 1 5 51, therefore, decided that schools should be established 
in the houses of the better city priests, where the pupils were 
to learn how to read and write and also how to sing. And 



49° Educational Review [May 

while every Christian was welcome to send his children to 
these schools, their purpose was distinctly professional and 
clerical. It was expected that the clergy would send their 
children to such schools, so that the scholars on coming of 
age might be fit to become priests. But the decisions of the 
Stoglov Council were not carried out. In large cities like 
Moscow and Novgorod, and perhaps in some of the larger 
monasteries, elementary parish schools were probably estab- 
lished, but this did not affect the general situation. Nor were 
the lower clergy very friendly to schools, books, and learning. 

Dr. Giles Fletcher, the learned English traveler and the 
author of the remarkable book. Of the Russe common wealth, 
printed in London, 1591, writes about the Russian clergy: 
"As themselves they are voide of all manner of learning 
so are they warie to keep out all meanes that might bring 
anie in : as fearing to have their ignorance and ungodlinesse 
discovered. To that purpose they have perswaded the em- 
perours that it would breed innovation, and so danger to their 
state, to have anie noveltie of learning come within the realme. 
Wherein they say but truth, for that a man of spirit and un- 
derstanding, helped by learning and liberal education car. 
hardly indure a tyrannical governement." 

Of course Dr. Fletcher lookt at the situation from a too 
advanced point of view. It is more than doubtful if in the 
sixteenth century education was feared in Russia on account 
of its incompatibility with the form of government, but what- 
ever the reasons might have been, the fact remains there were 
no schools and that ignorance was widespread, and with this 
general ignorance of the clergy and the still greater ignorance 
of the laity the hostility towards any innovation was but 
natural. 

This appalling ignorance has proved thruout the history of 
Russia to be its weakest spot, and Russia's enemies, especially 
Poland and Sweden, were very anxious that no ray of enlight- 
enment should penetrate the Tsar's domain. So we see King 
Gustavus Adolphus sending a special embassy to Queen Mary 
in 1556 to remonstrate against the intercourse carried on be- 
tween English merchants and the Russians,^ and King Siges- 

' Dalin, Geschichte von Sc/nveden, 1763, Vol. Ill, p. 360. 



1007] The history of the school in Ricssia 491 

mund writes in 1569 to Queen Elizabeth on the same subject, 
some passages from which letter we cjuote : . . . "As we 
have written afore, so now we write againe to your Majesty, 
that we know and feele of a surety the Muscovite, enemy to 
all liberty under the heavens, dayly to grow mightie by the 
increase of such things as be brought to the Narve, while not 
onely warres but also weapons artificers and arts be brought 
unto him ; by mean whereof he maketh himself strong to van- 
quish all others. Which things, as long as this voyage to 
Narve is used can not be stopped. And we perfectly know 
your ]\Iajesty can not be ignorant how great the cruelty is of 
the said enemy of what force he is, what tyranny he useth on 
his subjects and in what servile sort they be under him. We 
seemed hitherto to vancjuish him only in this, that he was rude 
of arts and ignorant of policies. If so be that this navigation 
of the Narve continue, what shall be unknown to him? . . .® 

But the Russians were not learning as much as the King 
Sigesmund feared. More than a hundred years later (in 
1676), when in the house of Boyarin Matveyeff a text-book 
of algebra for the instruction of his son was found, the old 
Loyarin was accused of dealing with evil spirits, of magic 
and witchcraft by means of a book filled with ciphers, and 
he was deprived of all his property and was exiled to the most 
northern part of the province of Arkhangelsk.^ 

But the neglect of public education on the part of the 
Church and the State was destined to avenge itself soon and 
very unexpectedly. 

The Nemesis came in the form of the great Dissent which 
split the Church and gave the government no end of trouble 
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As we have 
already pointed out the piety of the ignorant masses, while 
genuine and ardent, was purely technical. The content and 
meaning of the prayers became almost lost and the means of 
worship became the object of worship, the sole content of 
faith. So, for instance, when Ivan the Terrible, who was at 
that time one of Russia's best educated men, wanted to get 

^ Hakluyt Society Publications, Vol. XX, London, 1856, p. 16-17. 

'' Eugene Schuyler, Peter the Great, New York, 1884, Vol. I, p. 28-29. 



492 ^Educational Review [May 

precise information about the Lutheran faith, he orders the 
pastor Martin Nandelstadt to answer in writing questions hke 
these : How does the minister enter the church ? What kind 
of gowns do the priests wear? What do they sing at the 
Mass ? How do they ring the church bells, alike on all holi- 
days or differently on the great holidays ? etc. 

Now it happened, as was of course to be expected, that in 
the course of time a number of inaccuracies and obvious mis- 
takes had crept into the Russian service-book, a fact which 
already in the middle of the sixteenth century the learned 
Greek monk Maxim from Mount Athos had properly pointed 
out. If, therefore, the Russian service was to be conformed 
to that of the Eastern Greek orthodox church a slight re- 
vision of the ritual and some minor corrections of the service- 
book were advisable. The Tsar Alexey Mikhaylovitch and 
the Patriarch Nikon decided to undertake this revision, and 
then the troubles began. Questions such as whether the name 
of Jesus should be pronounced "Isus" or ''Yisus," whether 
in a certain portion of the Mass the word " hallelujah " be 
repeated twice or three times; whether the sign of the cross 
should be made with two forefingers extended, or with the 
two forefingers and the thumb conjoined as denoting the 
Trinity, were sufficient to split the nation in two and make 
tens of thousands suffer martyrdom. The government in- 
fluenced the Church council held in 1666- 1667 to take the side 
of the Patriarch Nikon. At the same time the council de- 
clared that the reason of these "rebellions" and dissents in 
the Church was to be found in the ignorance of the clergy. 
The Council, therefore, while not making any arrangements 
for the education of the people, insisted that each clergyman 
should teach his children to read, so that they might be worthy 
to succeed their fathers in their clerical positions, because at 
present, argued the Council, the country clergy is so ignorant 
that it is not fit to take care even of herds of cattle, to say noth- 
ing about men's souls. 

But this decision of the Church Council to educate the 
clergy failed again. Even one hundred and twenty years 
later, in 1786, among the clergy of the diocese of Kazan alone, 



igoy] The history of the school in Russia 493 

381 were illiterate. But let us return to the seventeenth cen- 
tury. 

Milukoff in his Sketches on the Jiistory of Russian civili- 
sation has admirably pointed out that the demand for sec- 
ondary and higher education developed much earlier than the 
need of elementary schooling. That one could learn how to 
read and write without going to school was the general convic- 
tion. On the other hand the State and Church machinery 
was in sore need of men of quasi higher education. It was 
a practical and urgent necessity. So far as more or less 
learned Russian theologians are concerned they were easily to 
be had in Southern Russia, especially in Kieff. This city 
having been for a long time in possession of Poland it natu- 
rally was within the sphere of influence of the Polish civili- 
zation, and in Kieff itself the Jesuits had a Catholic academy. 
There was, therefore, nothing else left to the Greek orthodox 
Kieff monasteries of the seventeenth century except to fight 
the devil with fire, i. e., to compete with the Jesuits in learn- 
ing, as they were unable to suppress them with the sword. Many 
excellent men, therefore, came from Kieff and among them the 
learned and enlightened priest Simeon Polotski, a man high 
in favor with Tsar Alexey. 

This priest as well as the Greek Metropolitan Paissius, 
urged the Tsar to establish an academy in Moscow. In 1667 
Simeon Polotski was allowed to open his academy. He had 
but four students, all young government officials appointed to 
study "Latin and grammar," but really pursuing the regular 
"trivium" course of Polotski's Kieff alma mater. But al- 
ready in the next year (1668) the government found it neces- 
sary to send the four young men on a diplomatic mission to 
Courland, and that was, so far as we know, the end of Polot- 
ski's academy. The reason for this failure is probably to be 
found in the dislike of the Moscow clergy for the Greek or- 
thodox theologians and clergymen, who came from Kieff, and 
perhaps especially in their dislike for Simeon Polotski. In 
his writings as well as in his sermons he often referred to St. 
Augustine's works, to the writings of Bellarmin and of 
Baronius, which seemed to the Moscow clergy highly im- 
proper and in fact very suspicious. 



494 Educational Review [May 

In 1682 the pupil of Polotski, Silvester Medvedeff, finally- 
got permission to reopen the ill-fated Slavonic Latin Academy 
and in 1686 he had already twenty-three pupils. At the same 
time the anti-Latin party felt itself obliged to open a Greek 
school, and in the years of 1684- 1686 this school actually had 
as many as two hundred pupils. Li 1687 the two schools 
were merged into one " Slavonic Greek-Latin Academy." It 
was primarily a theological school. This school was endowed 
by the government with the powers of an inquisitional tribunal 
in matters of faith. The teachers were obliged to take an oath 
that they would not offer any interpretation that might 
lead to doubting the truth of the Greek orthodox faith, nor 
would they compare Greek orthodoxy with other religions, 
nor would they represent other religious doctrines as supe- 
rior to the teachings of the Russian Greek orthodox Church. 
All this on pain of being burned. In a very few years this 
academy went to pieces, and was reorganized as a theological 
academy. During the seventeenth century it accomplished, 
so far as we can gather, but one thing, the burning of a Ger- 
man mystic, a follower of Jacob Bohme, a certain Ouirin Cul- 
man, who hoped wnth the help of Russia to establish a Church 
Universal. 

So ended the seventeenth century, the last century of Mus- 
covite Russia, leaving in matters of public education nothing 
started and nothing accomplished, leaving no Russian school, 
no educational traditions, except the passive resistance of ig- 
norance. 

II 

To meet political conditions Russia had to be reorganized on 
a European basis, and Peter the Great was the man who per- 
formed the task and thereby turned Russian history into new 
channels. The complete reorganization of the military system 
and of the civil administration- could not be accomplished by 
one man, even by an autocratic revolutionist, an indefatigable 
worker like Peter the Great. Helpers were needed, men with 
technical education, men for the army and for administrative 
positions. The professional and technical education of a large 
number of the Russian people became a condition on which 



1907] The history of the scJiool ill Russia 495 

the success of Peter's enterprises depended. Therefore al- 
ready in 1698 Peter imported the Enghshman, Farwarson, to 
teach mathematics and navigation, and in 1701 a school of 
mathematical and naval sciences was established. All the pro- 
fessors, with the exception of one Russian, were Englishmen; 
the students were taught arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, 
geodesy, some astronomy and navigation. But as a matter 
of fact the students were also taught reading and writing. 

This naval school was the first secular school in Russia, 
and it prepared young men not only for the navy, but many 
of its graduates afterwards became artillery-officers, civil and 
military engineers, school-teachers, architects, or officers in 
the civil service. This school existed for fifteen years. In 
1 71 5, when the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg was estab- 
lished, the Moscow institution became a preparatory school 
for the academy.^ 

In 1 7 14 Peter the Great began earnestly to consider the 
problem of general compulsory education thruout Russia. 
This end he hoped to achieve by the establishment of ele- 
mentary " arithmetical " schools in the country and by pro- 
hibiting all marriages unless the men were graduated from 
these schools. The laws past by Peter on these subjects 
are extremely curious,'' but of course to enforce them was out 
of the question. Besides, the number of these schools was 
altogether inadequate. By 17 16 twelve such schools were 
opened, and in 1720-22 thirty more were established. 

It is very fortunate that statistical data about these arithmeti- 
cal schools were collected in 1727, and these statistics show 
us that altogether during the previous year something over 
two thousand pupils were taught in these schools. 

Out of these : 

931 were children of the clergy .... 45-4 per cent. 

402 were children of soldiers . , . . . 19.6 " 

374 were children of civil officers .... 18.2 " 

93 were children of artizans and tradesmen . . 4.5 " 

53 were children of the nobility .... 2.5 " 

' Graf D. A. Tolstoy. Ein Blick anf das Unterrichtswesen Russlatids im 
XVIII. Jahrhundert. Ubersetzt von P. v. Kugeln in Beitrage zur Kenntnis, des 
Russischen Reiches. Zweite Folge, Br. VIII, St. Petersburg, 1S85, p. 25-27. 

* Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, N. 2762 and 2778. 



496 EdiLcational Review [May 

In 1 72 1 Peter ordered all the Episcopal sees to open dioc- 
esan schools, and within four years forty-six were established. 
In 1727 in these forty-six schools there were 3,056 pupils. 
And by the end of Peter's reign there were all told one hun- 
dred and ten elementary schools in Russia. 

Of course the number of schools does not represent at all 
adequately the Great Monarch's significance for Russian Edu- 
cation. First of all, he was the first Russian Tsar to recognize 
personal worth and ability." He personally cared little for 
the ancestry of the ofiice-holder. Did he not himself marry a 
pretty Esthonian girl, who was Menshikoff's mistress? And 
was not Peter's favorite, Prince Menshikoff, but a baker's 
apprentice in his youth? If a Russian nobleman w^as ambi- 
tious to reach a high position under Peter, he had to have the 
necessary educationa.1 and other qualifications for such a po- 
sition. That meant that education in Russia began to have 
almost the significance it has in modern life. If it was not 
yet a condition of existence, it was, so far as higher grades 
of public service were concerned, a condition of success. The 
innumerable young men sent abroad by Peter, and the thou- 
sands of foreigners imported by Peter to Russia, meant the 
educational progress of the people. Also Peter's revolution- 
ary tearing down of all the barriers of convention and of 
prejudice that stood in the way of Russia's Europeaniza- 
tion — crude as his methods were — meant educational advance. 

So we see that Peter introduced Western civilization into 
Russia, at least en principe. That this civilization did not 
go down deep enough, that educational facilities were provided 
for but very few, is a merely quantitative consideration. The 
important thing was that an organization had been created 
which the nation had to maintain, and a standard established 
to which the nation had to conform. In other words, condi- 
tions were established under which in course of time the 

'" Interesting is Herzen's comparison of Peter the Great with Napoleon: 
■"Tandis qu'un siecle apres, Napoleon couvrait chaque annee de quelque nouveau 
lambeau royal son origine bourgeoise, Pierre ler se debarrassait chaque jour de 
quelque lambeau du tzarisme pour rester lui-meme, avec sa grande pensee appuyee 
sur une volonte inflexible, sur la cruaute d'un terroriste." — Alexandre Herzen, 
Dti developpement des id/es r^volutionnaires en Russie, Londres, 1853, p. 34. 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 497 

spread of education was guaranteed, if the nation was at all 
to maintain the new European organization of government. 
This new Russian Empire in its new political situation, with 
its new international obligations, could not exist without a 
constantly growing number of men in its service with some 
sort of an education, a condition which did not exist at all 
in the old Muscovite Tsardom. 

But one never gets something for nothing, and the price 
that eighteenth-century Russia had to pay for the guarantee 
of a European civilization in the future was appalling. For- 
eigners were in the highest offices of state during Peter's life- 
time. But Peter himself was a true Russian, and he not only 
adopted the new title but was in fact " Imperator," After 
his death, however, Russia became the booty of German ad- 
venturers. Russia's throne in the eighteenth century has been 
compared by a famous publicist" with the bed of Cleopatra. 
The Roman law principle ''res nullius cadit primo occupanti'^ 
became the law of succession to the crown of the realm, owned 
and played with by foreign adventurers. Professor Kovalev- 
ski says^- it would have been difficult to find in the history 
of the eighteenth century — one might say the whole of mod- 
ern history — a period more disgraceful, more contrary to the 
feelings of personal and national dignity, than that which be- 
gan in Russia with the ascension of Empress Anne to the 
throne. The Russian government was vested in the hands 
of three foreign adventurers, Biron, Ostermann, and Miinnich, 
who plundered Russia, executing every Russian who dared to 
be dissatisfied with the order of things. The memoirs of the 
German, Marderfeld, and the French ambassador. La Chetar- 

" Herzen in the foreword to M^moires de V Imp^ratrice Catherine II hritz par 
elle-meine, Londres, 1859, p. viii: "Periode etrange! Le trone imperial res- 
semblait au lit de Clejpatre. Un tas d'oligarques, d'etrangers, de pandours, de 
mignonsconduisaieijt nuitamment un inconnu, un enfant, une allemande; I'elevaient 
au trone, I'adoraient ct distribuaient en son nom, des coups de knout a ceux qui 
trouvaient a y redire. A peine I'elu avait-il eu le temps de s'enivrer de toutes les 
jouissances d'un pouvoir exorbitant et absurde, et d'envoyer ses ennemis aux travaux 
forces ou a la torture, que la vague siiivante apportait dej4 un autre pretendant, et 
entrainait I'elu d'hier, avec tout son entourage dans I'abime. Les ministres ei les 
generaux du jour s'en allaient le lendemain, charges de fer, en Siberie." 

'^ Kovalevski, M., Russian political institutions. Chicago, igo2, p. 119. 



498 Educational Review [May 

die, show that the number of persons condemned to death in 
ten years amounted to 7,000, while 30,000 were exiled during 
the same period to Siberia. The documents of the " Sysknoy 
prikaz," a political star chamber, show that during five months 
from August i to January i, 1731, 425 men were put to 
torture, 1 1 executed, 57 sent to Siberia, and 44 enrolled in the 
army as privates. ^^ 

The Russian Empire became the business enterprise of a 
few Germans.^* But one must admit that after Peter's death 
Miinnich and Ostermann were perhaps the only statesmen 
that were then in condition to guide the Ship of State. The 
Germans were certainly cruel schoolmasters, but they were the 
schoolmasters of Russia after all.^^ To obtain a great Em- 
press like Catherine II, Russia had to take in the bargain even 
a creature like Biron. 

In the period after Peter's death the government continued 
to emphasize professional and higher education and to neglect 
the elementary instruction of the people. 

Already Peter the Great not long before his death had de- 
cided to establish in Russia an academy of sciences, and in 
1726 with this academy was combined a university and a 
classical gymnasium. 

Seventeen German professors were imported into Russia in 
1726, among them men like Euler and Bernulli, who after- 
wards achieved international fame. But since a university 
could not exist without students, eight students were imported, 
five of whom became, also, famous scholars." It seems, how- 
ever, that these imported students were immediately employed 
in different capacities by the government, and the faculty of 

'^ Ide?n, p. 122. 

'■* "Es war als hatten die Deutschen das Russische Staatswesen gepachtet. 
Biron hat in einem Gesprach mit dem Fursten Schachowskoj sich entrlistet 
darliber geaussert dass die Russea iiberhaupt eine Meinung haben und derselben 
Ausdruck geben wollten," Bruckner, Die Etiropaisierung Russlands, Gotha, 
1888, p. 332. 

'* See Bruckner, p. 325. 

'« Mayer, Weitbrecht, Craft, Cramer, and Gmelin. See Graf D. A. Tolstoy, 
Das Akademische Gymnasium und die Akademische Universitdl im XVIII. Jahr- 
hundert. Aus dem Russischen, von P. v. Kugeln, St. Petersburg, 1886, p. 144- 
145- 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 499 

seventeen professors was again without students. The gov- 
ernment, nevertheless, insisted that lectures should be given. 
Nothing was therefore left to the imported professors but to 
lecture to one another. Such conditions could not continue 
for any length of time, and lectures, therefore, were given up 
entirely for a number of years. In 1732 twelve students from 
the Moscow theological school (the former Slavonic Greek- 
Latin Academy) were sent to the university, but soon after 
were sent to assist a scientific expedition to Camtchatka. In 
1736 again twelve students were selected from the same Mos- 
cow school and sent to the university. But they could not 
learn anything because no lectures were given. These stu- 
dents complained to the senate that they received no instruc- 
tion, but without result. In 1753 we find an entry in the min- 
utes of the Academy of Sciences to the effect that of the whole 
faculty only Professor Brown was giving lectures from time 
to time; and in 1757 Count Rasumovski, the president of the 
Academy of Sciences, reported that the professors of the uni- 
versity for many 3^ears had given no instruction whatever, 
and students of the university for many years had received 
none.^^ In 1760 when the first great Russian scholar, Lomo- 
nossoff, became rector of the university, he divided it into 
three faculties : the philosophical, the juridical, and the medical. 
He established dormitories, he compelled the professors to de- 
liver lectures, but the students never exceeded the number of 
twenty, and in fact in 1782 there were only two students. It 
looks, therefore, as if Boltin was right in saying, " You want 
to create in a few years what recjuires centuries, and you be- 
gan to build on sand, without caring for a foundation. "^^ This 
foundation was, of course, elementary education. Neverthe- 
less, even if the classroom work amounted to nothing, the St. 
Petersburg University, by reason of the very existence of a 
scholarly faculty, had a considerable influence in the eighteenth 
century. More successful was the academic g}-mnasium, which 
was established at the same time as the university in 1726. 

""Sbornik"of the division of Russian literature of the Imperial Academy of 
Sciences, Vol. XXXVIII, N. 4, p. 9. 

'* Count D. A. Tolstoy, Das Akademische Gyviuasiiim, etc., p. 218. 



500 Educational Review [May 

It had in the first year 120 pupils; in 1727, 58; in 1728, 26. 
Fearing that it might be left without pupils, the government 
decided to place in the gymnasium children of the lower 
classes, even children of serfs; in 1729, therefore, the number 
again reaches 74. In 1735 twenty governmental fellowships 
were established at the gymnasium; this number was increased 
in 1750 to forty, and in 1760 to sixty. The number of pu- 
pils, however, did not much exceed the number of fellowships. 
So at the end of Catherine II's reign there were only seventy 
pupils in the St. Petersburg Gymnasium. 

In 1730 Field-Marshal Miinnich established an artillery 
school, which had from the very start about sixty students, 
and in 1735 Ludvig Wilhelm, Prince of Hessen-FIomburg, 
opened an academy for military engineers. These two schools 
were successful, and they were merged in 1758. 

In 1 73 1 was established the "Noble Corps," a military 
school for about two hundred boys. In the next (1732) a 
number of regimental schools was opened, where the children 
(about 4,000) of the soldiers were taught. In 1744 these 
regimental schools were merged with the arithmetical schools 
established by Peter the Great. In 1733 a medical school was 
opened with twenty students, and in 1752 the Naval Noble 
Corps, a new naval academy. 

In January, 1755, ^'^^ Moscow University was opened with 
two academic gy^mnasia, one for the children of the nobility, 
the other for children of other classes. The lectures in the 
university were given in Latin or in French. There were three 
faculties: the philosophical, juridical, and the medical; and one 
hundred young men from the Moscow Theological Seminary 
were enlisted as students. The Moscow faculty soon began 
to fill the vacant places with Russian professors, who mostly 
studied abroad. The number of students during the eight- 
eenth century was always between eighty and one hundred. 

Two gymnasiums were established in Moscow at the same 
time as the university : one for the children of the nobility, the 
second for the children from other classes of society. These 
two gymnasiums were managed by a Hungarian named 
Schaden, and due to his ability, the Moscow gymnasiums were 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 501 

the most successful Russian educational enterprises of the 
eighteenth century. They were organized after the German 
model. The number of pupils constantly increased; starting 
with about 100, they numbered over 1,000 in 1787. 

In 1758 a gymnasium was also established in Kazan. In the 
regular curriculum (languages, Russian, classical, French, 
and German; mathematics, history, and geography), the 
Tartar language was included as an elective. The great ma- 
jority of pupils were maintained by the government, but their 
number never exceeded 125. 

In 1759 an aristocratic military educational institution was 
established under the name of "The Corps of Pages." The 
number of places, originally but twenty-four, was soon in- 
creased to about eighty. 

All these new educational establishments meant, of course, 
dissemination of knowledge, but no figures can give an idea of 
what Catherine II meant for Russia's education and civiliza- 
tion. The great century of enlightenment was interpreted to 
Russia by Catherine. She created a new atmosphere at the 
court, not altogether moral, but decidedly cultured. If Peter 
gave to the Russian nobleman some primary and some profes- 
sional education, Catherine II made out of the Russian noble- 
man a European gentleman. For the lower classes of the 
population, and especially for the peasantry, she could do lit- 
tle in matters of education, being handicapped by the exist- 
ing institution of serfdom. 

Catherine w-as an ardent believer in education, and her writ- 
ings show not only a very thoro knowledge of the eighteenth- 
century French philosophers, with many of whom she was 
in constant correspondence, but also with the works of Eng- 
lish philosophers, especially with those of Locke. In fact, her 
wa-itings are nothing but a compilation from the works of 
Montesquieu, Beccaria, Locke, Voltaire, Diderot, etc. In her 
Plan of Work and Regulations for the "Legislative Commis- 
sion" which she called into existence in ,1768, she wa-ites : "Do 
you want to prevent crime? Then work for the dissemina- 
tion of enlightenment among the people." But, on the other 
hand, Catherine had none of Peter's integrity and earnest- 



502 Educational Review [May 

ness of purpose. Peter was after efficiency; Catherine after 
the appearance of general culture, in the attainment of which 
she was signally successful. Catherine became, however, very 
reactionary in the later part of her reign. On receipt of a 
communication from the Governor of AIoscow, reporting the 
lack of interest on the part of the common people in the newly 
established schools, the Empress is reported to have written : 
" Tant mieux; ce n'est pas pour eux que je fonde des ecoles, 
c'est pour I'Europe, ou je tiens a conserver mon rang dans 
I'opinion. Du jour ou nos moujiks auraient le desir de s'in- 
struire, ni vous ni mois ne resterions a nos places." ^^ 

The actual accomplishments of Catherine in matters of pub- 
lic education can not be overestimated. She was the creator of 
the first real and effective elementary public city schools, and 
of a normal .college for teachers.-" 

Joseph II, with whom Catherine was on very friendly terms, 
recommended to her an accomplished Servian educator, Janko- 
vitch de Mirievo, who had reorganized the public school sys- 
tem in Hungary. Jankovitch came to Russia and worked out 
a plan for a Russian public school system after Felbieger's 
Praissian system. Twenty-seven German and Austrian text- 
books were translated by him into Russian, and in 1783, under 
his immediate supervision, a normal school for teachers was . 
established in St. Petersburg, and one hundred theological 
students were matriculated in the new school. In 1786 the 
first elementary public schools were opened. These schools 
were of three grades; those with two, with three, and with 
four year courses. The curriculum of the first year in all these 
schools consisted in reading, writing, arithmetic, the short 
catechism, sacred history, and the beginning of Russian 
grammar. The second year's course contained the same sub- 
jects, but further advanced. The schools with a three years' 

^^Gregoire Liwoff, Afic/icl Katkoff et son opaque, Paris, 1897, p. 34, We be- 
lieve this note to be apocryphal, first because we can find no reference to it any- 
where else, secondly because the remark is too full of words and explanations, but 
that it was Catherine's sentiment is beyond doubt. The fate of the unfortunate 
Radishcheff proves it. 

'" See Sbornik otdehnia Russkago yazyka i slovesnosti imperaiorskoy akademii 
ttauk, Tom XLI. N. 2: Graf D. A. Tolstoy, Gorodskia uchilishcha v carsivova- 
nie Imperatricy Ekateriny II, St. Petersburg, 1886. 



1907] 



The history of the school in Russia 



503 



course had in the third year the catechism with texts and com- 
mentaries, commentaries on the Gospels, Russian grammar, 
with exercises in orthography, Russian history, and geog- 
raphy. The schools with the four years' course had in the 
fourth year advanced history and geography, grammar and 
composition, elementary geometry, mechanics, physics, natural 
history, and civil architecture. But only with great difficulty 
could one find pupils for the upper two classes. The follow- 
ing statistical table taken from Falbork's work,^^ will be of 
interest as showing the sum total of the educational activity 
of these new city schools, as well as of other elementary public 
schools at the end of the eighteenth century. 



Years 



1786 
1787 
1788 
1789 

i7go 

1791 

1792 

1793 
1794 
1795 
1796 

1797 
1798 
1799 
1800 



Number of Schools 


Number of 
Teachers 


Number of Pupils 


40 


136 


4,398 


165 


395 


11,088 


218 


525 


13.539 


225 


576 


14.389 


269 


629 


16,525 


288 


700 


17,787 


302 


718 


17.500 


3" 


738 


17,297 


302 


767 


16,620 


307 


716 


17,097 


316 


744 


17.341 


285 


664 


15,628 


284 


752 


i6,Soi 


-281 


721 


17,598 


315 


790 


19.915 



In 1790 the population of the Russian Empire was about 
twenty-six millions. The relation of the number of children 
in the public school to the total population was, therefore, 
about I :i,573; a very sad proposition, but, after all, good for 
a beginning. 

Catherine II showed, also, considerable interest in the edu- 
cation of women. In 1764, two years after the successful coup 
d'etat which brought her to the throne, she opened the so- 
called " Smolny Institut" for young girls of noble birth. The 
chief aim of the institution was, as Catherine defined it, to 
educate efficient housekeepers, good mothers, and — such is the 
tribute that virtue demanded even from Catherine — faithful 

'^' G. Falbork and V. Charnoluski, N^arodnoye obrazovanie v. Rossii, p. 28. 



504 Educational Review [May 

wives. The girls were divided into four groups : those six to 
nine years old, nine to twelve, twelve to fifteen, fifteen to 
eighteen. The children in the first group were taught foreign 
languages; in the second group geography and history; in the 
third literature, architecture, Russian, and arithmetic and her- 
aldry; the teaching in the fourth group was exclusively " practi- 
cal." Social entertainments were frequently held, and stress 
was laid on good manners, able conversation, amateur theat- 
ricals, concerts, etc. If, for instance, a girl should make a 
hon mot, this witticism was repeated before the whole class for 
"imitation and encouragement." 

Prince Shtcherbatoff, a contemporary historian and pub- 
licist, had a low opinion of the kind of education the noble 
girls received in the Smolny Institute. The school system 
did not tend, he maintained, to make them either learned or 
moral. Their hearts were not being improved, nor, indeed, 
their minds ; what they learned well was but to play comedies. ^^ 

This statement, however, is probably too sweeping. There 
is little doubt that the education the girls received in Smolny 
was very worldly, but, nevertheless, the girls, after being 
graduated, took back to their often totally uncultured homes 
intellectual interests and refinement. The Smolny Institute 
still exists, and its educational system has still a distinct court 
flavor. Nevertheless, this educational institution contributed 
enormously to the spread of culture in the homes of provincial 
Russia. 

In rapid succession followed other large schools for second- 
ary and professional education, such as the School of Mines 
in 1772; in 1774 a Greek Gymnasium and a Greek Military 
School; in 1780 a School for Surgeons, and in addition the 
existing schools were greatly improved. 

In 1770 Catherine took even under consideration the plan of 
compulsory elementary education, but the country was not yet 
ready for such measures, and those projects still remain the 
forerunners of Russia's great educational tasks in the twen- 
tieth century. 

"Shtcherbatoff, The decay of morals in Russia, Russkaya S/arina, III, p. 684, 
See also Alexander Bruckner, Katharina die Ziveite, Berlin, 1883, p. 531. 



ipo7] ^/^^ history of the school in Russia 505 

III 

The Russian form of government has been characterized 
as an autocracy Hmited by assassination. The Russian terror- 
ists of the end of the nineteenth century could claim among 
their spiritual ancestors princes and princesses of blood royal. 
Thus was the foolish husband of Catherine II, Peter II, mur- 
dered; and Paul I, the son of Catherine, assassinated by one 
of her lovers (probably Soltykoff),-^ his own son, who suc- 
ceeded him as Emperor Alexander I, taking part in the plot. 
During the short and wild reign of Paul I, nothing was done 
for Russia's education. Not so under Alexander. He was 
a high-minded prince, full of noble impulses and firm faith 
in Western institutions and Western culture. Even many 
years later, when his friends cautioned him against the growth 
of republican sentiments in Petersburg society, he answered : 
" C'est moi qui ai mis ces idees en vogue, ce n'est pas a mois 
a sevir." 

Alexander 1 began with a complete reorganization of the 
school system in Russia. In fact, there was no such thing as 
a school system before Alexander ; there were schools but no 
system. Between 1802 and 1804 he created four new uni- 
versities, those of Dorpat, Wilno (abolished after the Polish 
rebellion), Kharkoff, and Kazan. He established the Ministry 
of Public Instruction, whose duty was to systematize and 
oversee the whole educational work thrliout the Empire.-* The 

■■^^ Catherine's immorality became proverbial, but one always forgets that she was 
started on this path, against her own will, practically by the order of Empress 
■ Elizabeth. Herzen sums up the situation very well in the following words of his- 
preface to Catherine's " Memoirs ": 

" After having wounded and outraged nearly every feeling of this young crea- 
ture's nature, they began to deprave her systematically. The empress (Elizabeth, 
Catherine was then the wife of the heir to the crown, the feeble in mind and body 
Grand Duke Peter) regards as a breach of order her having no children. Madame 
Tchoglokoff speaks to her on the subject, insinuating that, for the good of the state, 
she ought to sacrifice her scruples, and concludes by proposing to her a choice 
between Soltykoff and Narishkine. The young lady affects simplicity and takes 
both — nay, Poniatowsky into the bargain; and thus was commenced a career of 
licentiousness in which she never halted during the space of forty years." — 
Alemobs of the Empress Catherine II, London, 1S59, p. xiv. 

'^ See Memoirs of Prince Ada?n Czartoryski and his correspondence with Alex- 
ander I, edited by Adam Gielgud, London 1888, Vol. I, p. 306-312. 



5o6 Educatio7ial Review 



[May 



country was divided into six educational territories with a 
curator at the head, and with a university in each territory. 
Each territory was to be an educational unit in which all in- 
stitutions were to be coordinated. The university authori- 
ties were to have charge over all the gymnasiums in the terri- 
tory, and a gymnasium was to be founded in each provincial 
capital (forty-two such gymnasiums were opened by Alex- 
ander). The director of the gymnasium was at the same 
time the head of all county schools, and each county-seat was 
provided wuth such a school (405 such schools were estab- 
lished). The principal of each county school was to be also 
in charge of all parish schools, and each parish, or at least 
every two parishes, was supposed to have one such primary 
school. But the central government, while undertaking to 
provide for the maintenance of the universities, gymnasiums, 
and county schools, left the maintenance of the parish schools 
to the landlords of the corresponding villages. The result 
was that the parish schools remained a pious wish, but a dead 
letter on the statute book. In 1825, the year of the death of 
the Emperor Alexander I, there were in the 686 towns of the 
Empire, with a town population of over three and one-half 
millions, and a country population of about fifty-two millions, 
1,095 schools of all kinds, while there were at the same time 
4,266 churches and monasteries. 

Alexander I died, and the events after his death showed 
that he did not live and reign in vain. The influences of 
Western culture showed themselves. 

The flower of the Russian nobility, which was serving in 
the Imperial Guards, refused to swear allegiance to his suc- 
cessor, Nicholas I, and demanded a constitution. The insur- 
rection of December 26, 1825, failed, the leaders were hanged, 
the others exiled to Siberia, and the regime of darkest au- 
tocracy began. 

Nicholas I was a narrow-minded man, but with strong con- 
victions, and with a temper that brooked no contradiction. He 
made it his paramount task to educate his people for an auto- 
cratic regime. He therefore resolved to do away with all 
elements and conditions leading to independent thought or to 



1907] '^^^^ history of the school in Russia 507 

a desire for freedom. The existing system of education struck 
the Emperor as too liberal and needing reformation. The 
Secretary of Education, Shishkoff, was ordered by the Em- 
peror to work out a new system of education. The first prin- 
ciple of this new system was that the schools should not be 
arranged in a sequence, one leading up to another, the primary 
to the secondary, the secondary to the college or university; 
but rather to make of the schools independent units adapted to 
the social position of the social class from which the pupils 
came. The village school was to have in mind exclusively 
peasant children; the county school, children of the merchant 
class; gymnasiums and universities, children of the nobility. 
As the duty of the school was not only to teach, but to educate, 
the education of the whole youth of the Empire was to be in 
the hands of the government, and for that purpose all private 
boarding-schools and educational enterprises were rigidly sup- 
prest. The students in the universities were ordered to wear 
a special military uniform, and regulations were issued pre- 
scribing how they should appear in public, how they should 
•cut their hair. The university course also felt the heavy hand 
of Emperor Nicholas. Thus, for instance, all courses in Eu- 
ropean public law were abolished, because " rebellions in for- 
eign lands have disfigured this science and shattered its very 
foundations." Comparative constitutional law was discontin- 
ued because of " the weakness of its principles and its unsatis- 
factory results." Courses in social statistics and logic were 
abolished. Philosophy and psychology could be taught only 
by Greek orthodox professors of theology, and then with the 
■explicit order to teach according to the truth of revealed re- 
ligion. The professors were instructed to submit to the gov- 
ernment the lectures they intended to give, and also the lists 
of books recommended for collateral reading. The deans were 
to see to it that professors' lectures are identical with those 
that were approved, and they were to report the slightest de- 
viations, " even most harmless ones." The tuition fees of 
the students were furthermore greatly increased, so as to keep 
out poor people, " whom education may make dissatisfied with 
their lot, or with that of their friends." 



5o8 Educational Review [May 

Of the gymnasiums, the classical fell into disgrace. The 
classical writers talked too much about civic matters, and re- 
ferred to republics. By the end of the reign of Nicholas I, 
only eight classical gymnasiums were left in existence. 

Primary education under Nicholas existed only on paper. 
The Pedagogical Institute was closed, " being unnecessary." 
And unnecessary it really was in Nicholas's reign. Denomina- 
tional parochial schools were tolerated, and in 1839 there were 
2,000 such schools, with 19,000 pupils. But there is no way 
of telling whether they really existed. ]\Iany things existed in 
Russia on paper only, as the Crimean campaign showed. Em- 
peror Nicholas I used to say, " I hate war, it spoils my ar- 
mies." And he looked upon the nation as he looked upon the 
army: it existed for subordination's sake, and for an occa- 
sional parade. But the day of judgment came, and Sebasto- 
pol fell. That Liberal Russia saw in it but the logic of history 
goes without saying. But it is, perhaps, interesting to know 
what the father of Panslavism, I. S. Aksakoff, the famous 
Russian author and strict monarchist, writes to his father. 
"How severely just is fate, how terrible in its logic! Not 
by chance did Sebastopol fall ; it had to fall ; it is God's work, 
and it shows the whole rottenness of the system of govern- 
ment and its suffocating principles." Another famous nation- 
alist and influential statesman in Alexander II's reign, A. I. 
Kosheleff, writes practically the same thing, testifying that 
" we all were convinced that the defeat of Russia is more use- 
ful to her than her status quo." 

And so it was. The defeat was followed by a complete re- 
generation of Russia. 

With the accession of Alexander II to the throne of All the 
Russias, we enter a new phase of Russian history and Rus- 
sian education. We can not even talk about this phase as 
"history," as Russia's educational problems at present are 
too closely linked with their immediate past. 

The Russian Empire of Nicholas I was rotten from top to 
bottom; it was even unfit for national self-defense. A series 
of radical reforms were therefore imminent, and they were 
undertaken and carried thru. Serfdom was abolished, a mod- 



1907] TJi^ histo7'y of the school in Russia 509 

ern judiciary and military system was introduced, and local 
boards (zemstvos) introduced in thirty-four provinces of Eu- 
ropean Russia. Great reforms like these, of course, had to 
be accompanied by great agitation and bitter controversy on 
the part of both the progressive and conservative elements of 
society, and so it happened that educational questions were 
drawn in in these controversies and became political cjuestions. 
Nor has Russian national education yet outgrown this situ- 
ation. 

The Russian regeneration after the fall of Sebastopol had 
to contend with two great evils which were but natural out- 
growths of Russia's past. First of all, society had a profound 
distrust for the government; it never gave it even the benefit 
of the doubt, and was always willing to listen to the distinctly 
gross misinterpretations of the government's aims. Secondly, 
the government as well as the public was equally guilty in 
lack of patience, political tact, and willingness to cooperate; 
in lack of any desire to understand the point of view of the 
other, and in meeting each other halfway; and, above all, in 
fair play. In short, Russia — government and people alike — • 
was sadly lacking in that special kind of meekness that does 
indeed inherit the earth, as the two great Anglo-Saxon coun- 
tries seem to prove. The Russian people has become, under 
the Tartar yoke and centuries of absolutism, a country of bul- 
lies, but has utterly failed in producing the kind of material 
from which statesmen are made. Cavour said on one occa- 
sion that an ass could govern a country under martial law. 
And martial law became chronic in almost half of European 
Russia. 

This state of affairs was bound to affect Russian public edu- 
cation in a most vital way. 

The flat failure of the December Revolution of 1825 showed 
that palace revolution and the palmy days of pretorian insur- 
rection were over, never to come back again. The form of 
government is determined by the status of the great majority 
of the people, and not by what may suit a few of the intellec- 
tual elite. The intellectual classes of Russian society became, 
therefore, most anxious for the education of the people. But 



5IO Educational Review [May 

here again the Russian intellectuals showed absolute lack of 
patience. Instead of sowing the seed of true education, and 
letting the future generations reap the political fruit, they com- 
bined schooling with revolutionary propaganda. The result- 
ant attitude of the people is well characterized in one of Tur- 
genief's " Poems in Prose," prohibited, of course, by Russian 
censorship. 

The title of the poem is, "The workman and the man with 
the white hands " : 

. . . " The workmen wonder at the stranger, and reject 
his claim of being one of them, while they point to their own 
working hands, which smell of filth and tar, and to his deli- 
cate white hands: 'What do they smell of?' — 'Smell, your- 
selves.' — 'It is strange! We should say they smell of iron.' 
— 'Yes, of iron. For six years I have worn handcuffs on 
them.' — 'Why?' — 'Because I thought of your happiness, I 
wanted to make you poor fellows free, I rebelled against your 
oppressors; on that account I was put in prison.' — 'Prison!' 
— 'Yes.' — 'Wily were you rebellious?'" 

In the second dialogue, which occurred two years later, the 
same workman speaks to another about the young gentleman 
who once talked with them: "'He is to be hanged today; 
the order has come.' — ' Has he been rebelling again ? ' — ' Yes, 
again.' — 'Well, Dimitri, don't you believe we could get a 
piece of the rope he is hanged by? They say it brings good 
luck to the house.' — ' Yes, Peter, let us try.' "^^ 

Alexander II began his educational reforms with a re- 
organization of the University System. A new plan of uni- 
versity organization and a new curriculum has been drawn 
up and sent to all universities and to a iiumber of Russian and 
foreign educators for criticism and suggestions. All sugges- 
tions were taken under consideration, and the university regu- 
lations were five times revised before they finally received the 
approval of the Emperor on June i8, 1863. The Russian 
university became a combination of the French and the Ger- 
man systems. As in Germany, the Russian universities were 
granted administrative autonomy. The professors were to 

''^ G. Brandes, Impressions of Russia, London, 1889, p. 47. 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 511 

choose their deans and rectors, and were to fill vacancies. But 
as in France, the course of studies in each department was 
definitely prescribed, and yearly examinations in the course 
were required. The chairs in constitutional law and philoso- 
phy were reestablished. The faculties were made the sole 
censors of all university publications. The law limiting the 
number of students in each university to three hundred was 
repealed. The salaries of the professors were increased. On 
the whole, the government of Alexander II showed the most 
genuine desire to promote scholarship and university educa- 
tion. The tuition fees were fixed at 50 roubles a year ($25) 
in the Moscow and Petersburg universities, and at 40 roubles 
($20) in all provincial universities. An ample number of 
fellowships (stipends) were established, and poor students 
freed from all fees. In addition, new universities were es- 
tablished, and by the end of Alexander II's reign Russia had 
eight universities, and the establishment of a university in 
Tomsk (Siberia) was definitely resolved upon. The number 
of students more than doubled during the same reign. In ■ 
1854 there were, all told, 3,547 students, and the university in- 
struction was below the average college instruction in the 
United States. In 1880 there were 8,193 students, and the 
standard fully corresponded to that of the best American 
universities. 

But after the fall of Sebastopol the political movement with 
liberal or revolutionary tendencies grew rapidly, and the Rus- 
sian universities became something like a political barometer 
showing the state of mind of the Russian intellectual classes. 
Student demonstrations became chronic. The government's 
draconic measures. against these political demonstrations were 
of no avail. Quite the opposite ; the severer the measures the 
stronger grew the movement in the universities. The govern- 
ment succeeded occasionally in exhausting the student oppo- 
sition by wholesale banishment, but these were Pyrrhic vic- 
tories. In March, 1899, ^^r instance, 1,039 students of the 
Moscow University were arrested and 199 exiled. 

The murder of Alexander II in March, 1881, was a se- 
vere blow to Russian education. The reactionary elements of 



5 1 2 Educational Review [May 

the type of Katkoff and Pobiedonosceff gained the upper hand. 
And the university organization was again changed in 1884. 
The home-rule of the universities was aboHshed, the rectors 
were appointed by the government. The students were 
obHged to w^ear uniforms. The administration of the gym- 
nasiums was ordered to report on the secret characteristics of 
each of its graduates, and in case these indicated tendencies 
in the student opposed to Autocracy or Church, they were 
refused admission to universities. Furthermore, the tuition 
fees were raised, and pohtical considerations became predomi- 
nant in the awarding of fellowships and scholarships. Under 
the reign of the present Emperor Nicholas, the university af- 
fairs have become still worse. Political demonstrations have 
become epidemic. Extreme and very unwise measures have 
been taken by the government, such as the enrollment of the 
students who participated in demonstrations in the army as 
privates, regardless of age and physical condition. It goes 
without saying that such measures, as well as exile to Siberia, 
have not tended to improve the attitude of the students towards 
the government. On the contrary, during the last three years 
the Secretary of Education, Bogolepofif, and the Secretary of 
Interior, Sipyagin, were both killed by students, and not as a 
result of so-called " Nihilistic " plots, but rather to avenge 
the real or imaginary persecutions and wrongs sustained by 
the student body at the hands of the government. 

This state of things will not change till the Russian people 
get a representative form of government. Then the student 
body will attend to their work rather than to politics. 

So far as teaching is concerned, it is excellent in Russian 
universities. The universities have usually four faculties : the 
historico-philological, the physico-mathematical, the juridical, 
and the medical. The course occupies four years, with the 
exception of the medical faculty with a five years' course. The 
university matriculates only young men with diplomas from 
gymnasiums which have an eight year course and are exact 
duplications of the German gymnasium. 

There are at present in Russia nine universities and a num- 
ber of other institutions of learning corresponding to universi- 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 



513 



ties, which, as a whole, are fully able to take care of all de- 
siring to receive higher professional or liberal education. 

In 1809 there were but 450 students in all Russian uni- 
versities. In 1825 their number increased to 1,691; in 1854 
to 3,551. At present the Russian universities have the follow- 
ing: number of students : 



Kieff 2641 

Odessa 1878 

Warsaw 1400 

Tomsk 642 



1902 
1903 

1902 



St. Petersburg 3855 in 1903 

Moscow 4845 " " 

Kharkow 13S4 " 1901 

Dorpat (Yurieff) 1733 " 1902 

Kasan 96S " 1903 

Besides these universities, Russia has the following higher 
professional schools, which rank as universities : 

St. Petersburg. Imperial Law School 330 students 1903 

Historico-philological Institute... 96 

Academy of Military Surgeons .. . 750 

Technological Institute 1350 

Institute of Civil Engineers ... . 530 " 190; 

Electro-technical Institute 350 " 1903 

School of Mines ab. 600 

School of Forestry ab. 500 

Women's University ab. 300 

Women's Medical Institute, .ab. 600 
Institute of Engineers of Ways 

of Communication 894 

Moscow. Polytechnicum 1028 " 1902 

Theological Academy 197 " 1903 

Lazaref Institute for Oriental 

Languages 60 

School of Civil Engineers 380 

Nezin. Prince Bezboradkos Historico- 
philological Institute lOO 

JEK.A.TERINOSLAV. School of Mines 251 



Kharkov. Technological Institute 1000 

Kasan. Theological Academy 260 

KiEFF. Theological Academy 187 

Polytechnicum 1255 

Riga. Polytechnicum 1701 

Tomsk. Polytechnicum 591 

Warsaw. Polytechnicum 637 



1902 



1901 
1902 



1901 



Alexander II is also responsible for a thoro reorganization 
of Russian secondary education. The reform was approved 
by the Emperor November i8, 1864. 

Secondary education as viewed by the government resolved 
itself into the problem of preparatory schools for universities 
and higher professional schools. En principe it was decided 



5H Educational Review [May 

to follow closely the program and organization of the German 
secondary school. The question was only which should re- 
ceive preference, the classical gymnasium or the Realschule. 
The classical education found more energetic champions, and 
in 1864 eighty classical and realistic gymnasiums and four 
progymnasiums (gymnasiums with the four lower classes 
only) were opened. At the same time gymnasiums for women 
were established in provincial capitals. Since the original re- 
form was instituted many minor changes have been made in 
the program of no special significance; the German type re- 
mains unaltered. The only important reactionary step in the 
reign of Alexander III was the issue of a circular by Count 
Delyanoff in 1887 (then Secretary of Education), excluding 
the children of the poorer and lower classes from gymnasiums. 
The newly-made count, who was himself of inferior Armenian 
origin, argued that only in the very exceptional cases of a 
marked genius should children of coachmen, footmen, cooks, 
washwomen, shopkeepers, and working people be allowed to^ 
study. Experience shows, thought this statesman, that edu- 
cation makes children despise their parents and oppose the ex- 
isting order of things, with its natural inequalities. 

The Report of the Department of Public Education, pre- 
pared for the Paris Exhibition of 1900, shows the existence 
of 191 classical gymnasiums, 53 progymnasiums, and 115: 
realistic schools. In the same report we learn also that there 
are 477 secondary schools for girls, with 129,462 pupils. We 
hope that these figures are correct, but for those who may 
doubt them we quote the figures given by Milukoff in the second 
volume of his History of Russian culture : 

Number of pupils in the Number of pupils in other 

gymnasiums secondary schools 

Boys Girls Boys Girls 

1809 5,569 ' 

1825 7,682 

1836 15,476 

1848 18,911 

1854 17,809 .... 

1864 28,202 4.335 25,658 4.630 

1875 51,097 27,470 31,827 ? 

1885 93,109 35.205 ? ? 

1894 87,411 45,544 69,848 17,761 

1900 82,371 44,795 ? 23,199 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 515 

IV 

We have seen that while some attention was paid from the 
end of the seventeenth century to professional, higher, and 
secondary education, the elementary education of the people 
was almost entirely neglected. When Shishkoff in 1828 was 
reporting about the status of education in Russia he stated 
that practically elementary education did not exist in Rus- 
sia. But 600 elementary schools were then in existence in the 
whole Russian Empire. During the reign of Nicholas I, as 
we have already pointed out, schools, like many other things, 
existed chiefly on paper; there were nominally in 1851, 2,542 
schools, with 139,320 pupils, which cost the national treasury 
324,000 roubles in real money. 

As soon as the good old days past, the era of Alexander 
II's reforms began, and the press was almost entirely freed 
from censorship (unfortunately for a very short time only). 
Real life and blood were immediately infused in all schools 
carried on the government's pay roll. 

In 1864 in thirty-three provinces of European Russia, a 
very limited home-rule system was established under the name 
of " Zemstvo," or locally elected board. These Zemstvos were 
given the privilege of providing funds and attending with per- 
mission and under supervision of the local bureaucracy to mat- 
ters pertaining to local famines, charities, erection of churches, 
mutual insurance, public roads, public health, country prisons, 
to means of preventing epidemics among cattle, and to the 
financing of local schools. The control and management of 
these schools were naturally reserved to the central govern- 
ment. These Zemstvos contributed more than anything else 
to the spread of public education in Russia. 

Immediately after the abolition of serfdom on February 19, 
1 86 1, the government appointed a commission to work out an 
effective elementary school system. The plan of the commission, 
after many revisions, was approved by the Emperor Alexander 
II on July 14, 1864. As the aim of the elementary public 
school thruout Russia was recognized to be the religious edu- 
cation of the people, the course was to consist of religion, i. e., 



5^0 Educational Review [May 

the Short Catechism and sacred history, the reading of the 
church Slavonic language, church singing, the reading and 
writing of Russian, and the four fundamental operations of 
arithmetic. The program is the same in the parochial church 
schools managed by the Holy Synod, as well as in the elemen- 
tary school of the Ministry of Public Education. But the gen- 
eral complaint of the Russian educators was that the church 
school, while serving its political purposes, was, so far as in- 
struction went, very bad, and from the general educational 
viewpoint still worse. Some discount must, however, be made 
on such statements, because Russian educators are eo ipso lib- 
erals, and are therefore opposed to the church school. 

Towards the end of Alexander IFs life in 1880 we find that 
while the Russian public school system was far from what it 
ought to have been, it was, nevertheless, put on a solid basis. 
The elementary school statistics for all the sixty provinces of 
European Russia show that in 1880 there were 22,770 schools, 
with 1,140,915 pupils, out of which number 904,918 were 
boys, 235,997 were girls. These schools had 12,566 teachers 
of religion and 24,389 other teachers; their cost of mainte- 
nance amounted to 6,158,155 roubles (one rouble is about 50 
cents). The schools averaged about 50 pupils. The average 
cost of a school was 270.4 roubles; 13.8 per cent, of all boys 
and 3.3 per cent, of all girls of school age were in school. 

But it is not quite possible to compare the primary educa- 
tion in Russia with that in other countries. The reason is 
that what is regarded in Western Europe as primary educa- 
tion is classed to a considerable extent as secondary education 
in Russia. With some exceptions the Russian public schools 
are ungraded schools with a three year course, but since edu- 
cation is not compulsory but 10 per cent, instead of 33.3 per 
cent, graduate from the schools every year, and about 23 per 
cent, leave the schools without graduating. During the reigns 
of Alexander III and the present reigning Tsar, Nicholas II, 
progress has been made, but we regret to state that the support 
given by the government to the spread of public education 
was, and still is, a half-hearted one. The Russian government 
regards education as a necessary evil; Russia's natural re- 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 517 

sources and industries can not be developed without public 
education, and without their development Russia could not 
bear the heavy burdens connected with a modern military or- 
ganization. But a good public education of the masses of the 
people threatens theabsolutistic regime. And Emperor Alex- 
ander III was very far from taking chances in matters touch- 
ing the prerogatives of autocracy. Nicholas II's attitude 
towards real free and unhampered education does not differ 
substantially from that of the late monarch. The attitude of 
the government during the last three decades was to allow the 
people to learn how to read and write, and get acquainted with 
the four fundamental operations of arithmetic, but not more. 
The government systematically tried to get rid of such men in 
the Zemstvos as pushed with genuine energy the matter of pub- 
lic education. 

The attitude of the government towards the intellectual de- 
velopment of the people is very well characterized by its 
attitude towards school libraries brought out in the Report 
of the St. Petersburg Committee on Literacy in 1895. As is 
well known, no book can be printed in Russia that is not pre- 
viously approved by the government censor. From the begin- 
ning of printing in Russia up to 1895 something over 75,000 
works were printed there with the permission of the govern- 
ment. But the 'man who will assume that the common peo- 
ple may read these books is mistaken. Only such of the 
printed books as are especially approved by the department 
of public education may be kept in elementary or secondary 
school libraries and in libraries established for the use of teach- 
ers of the primary schools and gymnasiums, and of the 75,00a 
titles but 5,635 books are admitted in such libraries, i. c, but 
eight per cent, of the books which the censor allowed to be 
printed. The percentage is actually much smaller, because 
many of these books were published in numerous editions, and 
every edition was newly registered. Out of these 5,635 books, 
3,288 are school text-books. 

There are, therefore, but 2,347 books and pamphlets which 
the workingman, the schoolboy, and the teacher are permitted 
to read and to use for their intellectual and moral advancement. 
And it is scarcely necessary to point out that the tree of khowl- 



5i8 



Educational Review 



[May 



•edge is carefully guarded by the Russian police department, 
and that the couple of thousand books and pamphlets that are 
permitted by the government are intended for anything but 
the intellectual wakening of the people. 

The St. Petersburg Committee on Literacy, to which organi- 
zation the leading educators and Russian men of letters be- 
longed, and which did for the spread of education almost as 
much as many zealous officials did for its suppression, was 
disbanded by the government. 

A good test of the spread of elementary education is the 
percentage of illiteracy among the young recruits called to the 
colors. Falbork gives accurate data up to 1896, which are very 
instructive. Here everybody who can read and write, or only 
read, is regarded as literate. 



1S74 
1875. 
1876 
1877. 
1878 
1879 
1880 
1881 
1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1888 
1889 
1890 
1891 
1892 
1893 
1894 
1895 



Total number of 


Among them 


Per cent. 


men enlisted 


literate 




148,909 


31,789 


21.34 


179,002 


38,004 


21.24 


192,541 


40,334 


20.95 


212,469 


44,651 


21.01 


214,322 


44,282 


20.67 


215,181 


45,413 


21.12 


231,681 


51,161 


22.09 


209,965 


48,416 


23.06 


208,969 


' 49,168 


23-51 


215,624 


52,846 


24.99 


221,562 


56,442 


25.47 


227,906 


60,582 


26.58 


234,087 


65,092 


27.80 


236,436 


69,192 


29.26 


251,366 


75.538 


30.05 


255,868 


78,533 


30.68 


261,596 


82,286 


31-45 


261,122 


84,522 


32.36 


262,682 


91,478 


34.82 


259,988 


92,356 


35-52 


270,767 


101,946 


37-65 


277,050 


111,255 


4C.15 



The Russian government found itself finally compelled to 
favor, if not the progress of real education, then at least the 
increase of the parochial and other elementary schools, such 
as they are. This activity began after the terrible famine of 
1891-92. But even the amount of general education that the 
miserable Russian elementary school gives, seemed to the gov- 
ernment too much for the Russian peasant, and in the reign 



1907] The history of the school in Russia 519 

of the present Emperor a special effort has been made to 
transform the elementary school into an elementary profes- 
sional school where special stress is laid on gardening, agri- 
culture, carpentry, silk industr}^, etc. So when in 1895 the 
governor of the province of St. Petersburg, speaking about 
elementary schools, makes the profound discovery that an in- 
creased number of elementary public schools are only then of 
practical value if the children are taught there industrial arts 
which they can utilize; the Tsar Nicholas II noted on the 
margin, " That is entirely my point of view.'" And when in 
1894 the governor of Tiflis reported that he introduced in- 
dustrial training in the elementary schools, the Tsar wrote on 
the report: "Excellent, that is the direction in zvhich to work." 
In 1901 on the report of the governor of Nishni-Novogorod 
on the school needs of the masses, the Tsar resolved '* They 
need more professional training." 

But to the credit of the Russian nobility must be said that 
at the convention of the landed proprietors in 1895 in Mos- 
cow, a resolution was past against the introduction of agri- 
cultural and other professional training in the elementary 
school as tending only to shorten and greatl}^ injure the al- 
ready altogether insufficient course of general elementary in- 
struction. The St. Petersburg Committee on Literacy past 
a similar resolution as far back as 1893. But, nevertheless, 
even in 1898 the Department of Public Education reported 
that professional training had been introduced in 14,246 ele- 
mentary schools, i. e., in 38.5 per cent, of the whole number of 
schools of the Ministry of Public Education. The Holy Synod 
is also rapidly introducing professional training in the paro- 
chial schools. In 1898 such training had already been intro- 
duced in 6,259 parochial schools, i. e., in 15.7 per cent, of its 
number. The Russian public school with but a three year 
course for children from about eight to eleven years old is now 
giving to its pupils church Slavonic, church singing, re- 
ligion, catechism, and sacred history, agriculture, carpen- 
try, and other professional training, reading and writing, and 
the four fundamental operations of arithmetic. As a matter 
of fact the boy that has been taught for three years all these 



520 Educatio7ial Review [May 

arts and sciences learns them all so badly that he unfortunately 
but too often forgets in a few years after leaving school even 
how to read and write. 

Russia not having any compulsory education does not have, 
of course, any legally defined school age. The school age can, 
therefore, be only construed from the age of the children now 
in school. The age of eight to eleven must therefore be recog- 
nized as the Russian school age, and according to very ac- 
curate calculations of various Russian statisticians, the chil- 
dren of this school age, eight to eleven, constitute nine per 
cent, of the entire Russian population. Now let us see what 
percentage of the Russian population is actually in school, 
and how it differs in this respect from other countries."® 

That means that only one-third of the children between 
eight to eleven find accommodation in Russian schools. 

In 1900 there were 84,544 elementary schools in Russia, 
with 172,494 teachers and 4,507,827 pupils. Out of this num- 
ber 47.5 per cent, of the schools were under the management 
of the Ministry of Education, and 42.5 per cent, were paro- 
chial schools under supervision of the Holy Synod. These 
figures show a very considerable increase of schools during the 
last twenty years. Even in the last ten years the expenditure 
on elementary education was more than doubled. 

So the total expenditure on elementary parochial and pub- 
lic schools thruout the Empire in 1894 was 25,041,000 rou- 
bles; in 1900, 50,056,000 roubles. Towards these sums the 
government treasury contributed in 1894, 3,500,000 roubles; 
in 1900 10,333,333 roubles. The remainder of the sums were 
made up by local taxation, by private donations, contributions 
from churches and monasteries, etc. Besides economic rea- 

26 -^Ye take these figures from the excellent book on the Russian elementary 
school by A. N. Kulomzin, published in St. Petersburg, 1904, p. 13. 

United States of America 23 per cent, of the entire population is in school 

Kingdom of Saxony 21 " " " " 

German Empire 19 " " " " 

England 16 " " " " 

France 15 " " " " 

Netherlands 14 " " " " 

Russia 3.3 " " " " 



igoy] The histoi^y of the school in Rtissia 521 

sons why the government found it finally necessaiy to push 
the elementary education, there is also a political reason. 
The well-known Russian statesman, A. N. Kulomzin, writes 
in his recent book on Tlie elementary school in Russia : 
"If it is cjuestionable what is politically more dangerous 
— the literacy or ignorance of the people, there can be no 
question that if the people be taught how to read, it must 
be taught in a governmental school, and not outside of it. 
Literacy is growing more rapidly than the number of public 
schools — which is a grave political danger."^'' In Poland, for 
instance, from 1885 to 1898 the number of schoolboys de- 
creased, while the number of literate recruits increased one 
and one-half times. This circumstance is worrying the gov- 
ernment greatly, since this " secret education," as the Russian 
government chooses to call it, may be of liberal character. 
On the other hand, since the wages of a workman who can 
read and write are from twenty to sixty-five per cent, higher 
than those of an illiterate one, it is but too natural for the peo- 
ple to strive towards any sort of education that they may be 
able to obtain. There is, therefore, nothing else left to the 
government but gradually to increase the number of schools, 
seeing to it that the pupils do not get too much of worldly 
knowledge and that they be educated in the dogmas of the 
Church and in fear of superiors and the autocratic bureau- 
cracy. The government, therefore, naturally is especially care- 
ful in selecting the school-teacher. But is the government 
really fortunate in its selection is another question, and we 
have some very grave doubts about it. The Ober-procuror of 
the Holy Synod in his report of 1899 informs us that only five 
per cent, of the school-teachers serve more than ten years; 22.7 
per cent, less than one year; 62.4 per cent, less than three 
years; 80 per cent, less than five years. We are further told 
that what all the school-teachers seem to have in common is 
the desire to quit the job for a better position. So, for in- 
stance, when the government monopolized the liquor traf- 
fic, the public school teachers in thousands abandoned their 

" Ibid, p. 6. 



5^2 Educational Review 

schools to become governmental saloon-keepers. And why- 
should they not? They are subjected to all sorts of ill treat- 
ment and abuse on the part of petty officers, and their average 
remuneration for their hard v^ork is less than that of a skilled 
factory hand. In 1900 their salaries did not exceed 250 rou- 
bles ($125) a year; 45.6 per cent, of the school-teachers re- 
ceived less than 200 roubles (less than $100), and 26.6 less 
than 100 roubles ($50). 

Diicunt volentem fata, nolentem traliunt. The political and 
economic conditions of Russia are such that there is but one 
course open for its development. The elementary schools are 
bound to increase in number. There are at present over seven 
millions of children without school accommodations. This 
number will decrease from year to year. The government will 
see to that. But that is not enough. The school will improve. 
Instead of an annex of the police department, instead of an 
institution intended for the spread of some knowledge, " hut 
no more,'' it will lose in the course of time the character of a 
political tool in the hands of the autocratic bureaucracy, it will 
become the school of the intelligent, stedfast, and resource- 
ful citizen of a new Russia. This evolution can, of course, go 
only hand in hand with the disintegration of the ancien re- 
gime. But it is assured ; it is assured in the immediate future, 
unless it has been determined by Providence that Russia shall 
have no future. 

Vladimir G. Simkhovitch 

Columbia University 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
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